Tutorial on AI and Machine Consciousness at AAAI Conference by Antonio Chella.

Machine consciousness is an emerging field that addresses the problems of designing and implementing computational models of consciousness in an agent. The target of machine consciousness research is twofold: the possibility of building phenomenally conscious machines (that is, facing the hard problem of qualia) and the analysis of the active role of consciousness in controlling and planning the behaviour of an agent.

Machine consciousness is placed at the crossing between technical disciplines (AI, robotics, computer science and engineering), theoretical disciplines (philosophy of mind, linguistics, logic), and empirical disciplines (psychology and neuroscience). It focuses on attempts to apply the methods of AI, robotics and computer science to understand consciousness and to examine the possible role of consciousness in AI systems. On the one hand there is the hope that facing the problem of consciousness would be a decisive move to design better AI systems; on the other hand the implementations of AI systems could be helpful for understanding natural consciousness.

The tutorial will present the current state of research in machine consciousness and it will discuss the theoretical foundations and the experimental results of the field and their importance for the AI community.

The tutorial will be divided in four parts: i) theoretical and philosophical issues of consciousness, ii) models of machine consciousness, iii) case studies and implemented systems, and iv) discussions and perspectives of machine consciousness.

Prerequisite knowledge: No specific prior knowledge is required.

{mosimage} Antonio Chella is a professor of robotics in the Computer Engineering Department of the University of Palermo, Italy, where he leads the robotics laboratory. He is an associate editor of the Artificial Intelligence Journal. In 2007 he organized and cochaired the AAAI Fall Symposium on AI and Consciousness. He is cofounder and editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Machine Consciousness started in 2009. His recent research interests address the implementation of machine consciousness models in autonomous robots.